[UK-CONTEST] CW

[Ian White, G3SEK]

Dave Lawley wrote:
>
>The lack of a Morse component in the new licensing structure is of 
>course a threat to all CW contests, and to CW activity in general,

Are you sure about that?

For every new amateur who has chosen to go on beyond the basic 12wpm, 
many more have been taught to hate CW. They were so resentful about 
being forced to jump through that hoop, they've never gone near a key 
again. Worse still, they've encouraged new amateurs to follow their 
lead. (I first came on the air into just such an anti-CW culture, and it 
took a long time to find my own way into using CW.)

That's one way in which the compulsory test has been a disservice to CW. 
Another was that for many years the formal test totally ignored the 
realities of CW operating. Even when the "QSO format" was introduced, 
the test was still paper-based, so you still had a lot to *un*learn in 
order to copy in your head at higher speeds... and now you also need to 
learn the contesting skill of copying direct to keyboard. The morse test 
didn't help with any of that; it mostly led us in wrong directions.

In summary, I think the compulsory morse test did at least as much harm 
to the art of CW as it did good.

The FOC statement had it just right: CW will continue to thrive, but 
will now do so on its own merits [which don't have to be repeated here]. 
People will continue to learn CW, but now it will be because they want 
to - because they can see something in it for them.

There are lots of opportunities here. The first is to publicise the fact 
that there *is* something to be gained by learning CW. This needs an 
alliance between HF ragchewers, HF DXers, HF contesters and VHF/UHF 
DXers... the motivations are different but we can all get behind the 
same campaign. In fact, the more different motivations we can offer, the 
more people we'll catch!

Also lots of existing CW software is now obsolete because it's aimed at 
the old 12wpm test, and software authors must be wondering what to do 
next. One answer is to develop conversion courses for people who have 
passed the 12wpm test, but find those skills next to useless on the air. 
Another is to develop new training methods that don't stop at 12wpm but 
build the skills we really need on the air, and teach new people good 
habits from the word go.


-- 
73 from Ian G3SEK